A winter ride through the Catskills

Today I went on a crazy trip up to the Catskills. I'd already gone up to the general area around Catskill Park back about a month and a half ago, when it was about 14F outside, and my Widder gloves decided to short out just as I was approaching Big Indian, NY. Not fun.

But this time around, I posted an email on the friendly nycmoto mailing list (located at: http://www.magpie.com/mailman/listinfo/nycmoto05) and a very kind gentleman replied with the map you see to the left (if you're reading this and want credit, just let me know - I usually err on the side of anonymity just in case but I'm happy to give you all the credit!).

Now the funny thing about the route to the left is that it actually does bring you right back to Big Indian, via route 47 - just like the first time I tried to head up there! The big catch was that this time around, the temperature was a decent 48 in upstate NY, and 60 in NYC. In fact, it was nice enough that I didn't even need my heated vest - though I wore it just in case.

So... what did I think? It was beautiful. No really. I am now solidly convinced that Route 47 is the most scenic, serene ride this side of the Mississippi. Though there was still a little snow on the ground, the roads were as clean as possible from an obviously generous application of dirt to the roads in weeks preceding my trip... which was about the only downside. The winding Rt 47 road definitely needed keen attention to avoid slipping on the dirt, and I was careful to keep off the front brake during the entire ride. But that didn't detract from the ride beyond the usual road hazards (in fact, coming from NYC road hazards, it was a breeze).

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I started my ride with a slight deviation from the map shown above - specifically, I wanted to get to the mountains as quickly as possible, so I just hopped on I87N and rode it all the way up to the Kingston exit. I then took Rt28 West, which dumped me right into the park. Incidentally, the great thing about I87 is that there's a rest stop about 20 miles from Kingston, with a very helpful guy who'll give you free maps of the park for a 3 minutes conversation (he was very helpful). From there, I continued on 28 until I goto to Phoenecia. Phoenecia is a quaint little town with a couple really nice cafes on the left side of the road as you ride, and some decent coffee for refreshment. But the real hole-in-the-wall is Big Indian, NY. This "town" is really a general store and a closed gas station, with a few houses dotting the side of the road. Before turning left and heading through the mountain pass of Rt47, you'll probably want to overshoot the Big Indian by 5 miles and hit the gas station on the right - the only one for about 50 miles. I did, and in the two times I've been there, I've been in awe at the cool knives and pellet guns they have on display as well. On my previous trip in the dead of winter, I was able to pick up a few heating pads here as well, which were a life saver for my feet.

Rt 47 is spectacular. The road is windy, and steadily rises for what seems like hundreds of feet. You can literally feel yourself climbing with each turn. Be careful of oncoming traffic though, as this road seems to be frequented by large pickup trucks that think nothing of swinging wide in turns. This is the heart of the ride, so take it slow. If you pop open Google maps, you'll notice that there are a few hunting trails that snake off to the sides of the road - I explored one of them, and found it dumped me literally in the middle of nowhere fast. But it was fun nonetheless. I ate lunch at the end/top of one of those trails (I think it was Black Bear Rd).

As you reach the end of Rt47, the road will come to a small bridge to your left. If you take it, you'll come to Rt 157 which will take you south to Rt19 South, then to Rt55 East, 209 South, 52 East and then right back to I87 South back home.

I highly recommend it!

Buell XB12Ss vs. BMW K1200R

I had an interesting opportunity today, thanks to the great folks over at the Manhattan BMW dealership. They were kind enough to let me test ride one of their BMW K1200R naked bikes. Of course I rode over my trusty Buell XB12Ss, and thus began my in-depth side-by-side comparison of the two machines.

Now just to set the record straight before I start - I'm biased, I really like my Buell, and it would take a real masterpiece to uproot my opinion of my bike (I'm sure it will happen eventually though). But at the same time, back when I was shopping for bikes, the K12R was the top competition, and I truly felt that I was going to buy one.


First impressions of the BMW K1200R
The bike is big. It's certainly a lot longer than the Buell, but not necessarily any wider. The handlebars seem perhaps a bit bigger, and the grips are definitely a lot skinnier/slimmer on the BMW. The bike is also downright ugly, but I like my bikes that way... after all, the Buell is a love-it or hate-it kind of look. So too the K12R. Now this is where the magazine editors usually go on for paragraphs about how the bike looks, yadda yadda but I'm a real person and I just care about how the bike *rides*.

Engine revving
The K12R engine, when revved, sounds a lot like a high pitched bumble bee. It's not unlike a lot of inline 4 engines from the Japanese, but the engine never really reaches the high-pitched whining we all know and hate in a Japanese liter bike. Now from the start, the engine revs say a lot to me about the nature of the bike. This bike is not going to get you heard in New York City. In fact, despite my craziest attempts to rev the enginge on the K12R, I could never get it loud enough to make the casual passerby glance over. That's a lie. When the engine was almost red lining, it made this nasty garbling sound, and someone looked to make sure I wasn't going to explode. This is a huge downside for me, since I count on my Buell's loud engine to act as an immediate on-command horn to disperse would-be jaywalkers, and to announce my presence to straying cabbies.

Off the line and low speed riding
Buell officially has me spoiled with it's torque. I don't care how many horsepower more the BMW has than my Buell - the fact is plain and simple: the BMW is a weaker bike (the K12R has something like 160hp while the Buell has around 100hp). This is odd, since BMW markets the heck out of the K12R, stating it as the world's most powerful naked bike. From a numbers perspective, that may be true - but here's my problem with it: for day to day riding around the city - or anything besides a race track - the BMW doesn't really come into it's own until you're racing the engine up in the 8000-10000 rpms. This is simply unrealistic to expect for every single street light and stop sign in Manhattan. There's no way I'm going to sit there revving the engine for a constant 9000 rpms until the light turns green. Furthermore, it's unrealistic to think I'm going to spend all day riding in 1st gear. Imagine this: you're riding along in 1st gear at 40 mph and a cab starts to cut you off. You squeeze the clutch and hit the front brakes. The cab changes its mind and veres away again, but there's a grocery truck bearing down your tail. What do you do? Now you have to rev the engine back to 8000-10000 rpms, ease the clutch back out and pray you've got the right rpms for 1st or 2nd gear. Otherwise, you'll be jerking all over the place - not too safe. That's my gripe with the K12R's power - it's located up on the upper rev registers so high it's nearly impractical for all but straight line and constant speeds of 80-100mph. Off the line, the K12R is sluggish like most other bikes - a symptom of its low torque line/curve and rather heavy weight no doubt. I had a chance to test myself on a number of stoplights, with the same effect each time. Starting from idle was a slow, painful start, while revving first-then easing out the clutch resulted in a jerky, uncontrollable jolt. All in all, not impressed with the low-rev power.

Cruising speeds
Cruising in the city is technically limited to something like 30mph, but I've found that to keep out of trouble and remain in control, you tend to oscillate speeds somewhere between 25 and 45 with bursts that bring you up to around 55mph. This is precisely where the Buell's engine is optimized around 2nd gear for real gut-wrenching emergency-room type acceleration and 3rd gear for average-soul riding. And it's precisely where the BMW is just blah. Here, the BMW rides much like almost every other bike I've ridden - Ducati Monster to Speed Triple to Honda CBR: there's nothing spectacular going on. When you hammer the throttle, you tend to get a relatively whimperish response until the rpms climb into the high register sweet zone (notice a theme here?). This means that for average city riding, you're riding crippled. When an emergency comes, you're dealing with eye-to-mind-to-hand reaction time plus engine reaction time as it coils up to its power zone. I've never experienced this on my Buell. On the XB12, when I twist the throttle at crusing speeds, there's immediate power. In fact, the entire engine is there behind me, in it's sweet spot / power band /whatever you want to call it. The Buell feels like a serious power tool.

High speeds
What high speeds? This is New York City. Ok, so the BMW dealership let me take the BMW out onto the West side highway from the 50's to the 92nd street exit. I finally got to experience the BMW's engine as it was built... somewhere around 4th gear or 5th gear and 80mph. There, it felt a bit more powerful. In practical terms, I felt it was directly comparable to the power band of the Buell at the same speed. In fact, I couldn't tell the difference, except that at that speed the XB12 would be blowing out my ears and letting cars around me know to move away. The BMW was silent as death, and I felt like I snuck up on drivers - again not too safe. But really, no complaints here at these speeds. I have to say that I felt conflicted: it was like the engine was just starting warm up, yet it was screaming and dare I say a bit hesitant to climb higher. I definitely wasn't willing to go faster, since hitting a pothole on 9A would be a guarenteed wipe out, and yet I didn't feel comfortable going faster since the engine felt a little reluctant. Again, I'm used to a very forgiving and responsive Buell V-twin.

Handling / steering
Miserable miserable miserable. I had read a lot about this, so let me just clear it up: it's all true. I'm not going to blame the long wheel base like most people. There's something more - maybe it's the vertical center of balance being still too high or too far behind the driver. For some reason, the bike's "center/middle" feels like it's about two feet behind you. When you turn, it's like turning a pick pick-up truck into a parking spot - you need to be aware of the truck bed behind you and make sure you don't clip the cars parked next to you. To be fair, this is something that can be learned and adapted to, but when I ride the XB12, the center is directly underneath me, and so I steer the bike, and move myself, with one flowing motion - I literally (cheesy, I know) feel "one" with the Buell - and it all has something to do with the center of gravity / length / wheel based / turning radius / je ne sais qua. I guess the practical translation of my observations here really is that lane splitting is impossible with the K12R. I tried it several times, but found myself pulling back and stopping, because I was uncomfortable with the rate at which I could turn to avoid a stray car, opening door, or narrowing channel between a bus and neighboring cars.

Braking
This category should come first, since it's almost more important than acceleration in many instances. Most people would agree. Most people would also never complain about the K12R's brakes - but then they haven't ridden the XB12's massive front brake. Here, the two bikes are probably most similar - both brakes can be controlled comfortably with one finger, leaving the other 4 to manipulate the throttle for more advanced clutch-throttle-brake interactions. Yet somehow, on every BMW I've ever ridden, the brakes always grab too hard initially. There's a huge difference in my opinion between strong brakes and grabbing brakes. Strong brakes reliably apply an increasing amount of stopping power to the wheel with constant increments of pressure (the Buell has these). Gripping brakes, on the other hand, are strong very early in the squeeze, and then only slowly apply more pressure beyond the initial surge (the K12R has these). In practical Manhattan terms, this means you're more likely on the K12R to slow down faster than the cab in back of you. On the Buell, deceleration is an art; a balancing act between you and the cab in front of you and the bus in back of you.


Nit picks
I know a lot of bikes do this, but it's a thing about the BMW that annoyed me the instant I got on - the control dashboard and dials are stationary / attached to the body of the bike. On the Buell, the dashboard is connected to the front fork, so that when you turn the front wheel, the dashboard turns as well. This works great for navigating traffic at slow speeds (where you anti-counter steer, or steer normally), since you turn your head in the direction of the turn, and can easily look down. On the K12R, I found myself glancing into a turn, wanting to confirm my revs and speed, and having to cock my head back to a now artificial center line. Though minor, this feature on the Buell is one less thing to do, and more time focused on the road.

I didn't experience this directly, but I know since I researched extensively before buying my bike: the BMW electrical system is *not* user friendly whatsoever. This means that the life-saving rear brake LED flashers I've installed on my Buell would be impossible on the K12R (because of something about the finnickiness of the BMW's resistance-sensing system - if it detects above average resistance on the circuitry, it shuts down or fails to start). I would never, and will never ride a motorcycle for extended periods of time through NYC without additional LED bar flashers connected to the brake light circuit. I've been told on many occassions (by friendly cabbies) that these lights on my XB12 are the only thing that prevented a rear end collision.

Finally, those handlebars I mentioned earlier definitely start to irritate me - I know the theory likely has something to do with the finessed touch and controls, but trust me when I say nothing about the K12R handling have anything to do with finesse. By comparison, the stocky grips on the Buell are legitimate, and hard to miss. I've never slipped grip ever on the Buell, and yet because of my large hands, I found myself over gripping the BMW constantly.

Bridge review: Tappan Zee Bridge

I've been riding to upstate New York more recently these days, and I find the easiest route to take is via I87 / 287. Of course, this means I've been spending more time than ever crossing the Tappan Zee bridge, and so I felt it necessary and appropriate to add this to my list of bridge reviews.

Tappan Zee Bridge: *** 3 stars
The Tappan Zee suffers from one major flaw: there's no view of NYC anywhere to be had. But where it lacks in cityscape, it makes up in a great, lengthy stretch of river that seems to go for miles... 2 miles, to be exact. This gives you plenty of time to stretch your legs, and peer over the sides up and down the Hudson. Maybe you'll wonder as I did how people can reach those homes that seem to be nested up on the sides of hills - far beyond what sane people should be willing to drive to?

So all in all, it's a decent view, and a nice stretch - but it's nothing to go out of your way to see. Plus it tends to be frequented by an odd type of NY commuting cagers that a only a few notches below Jersey.

Beware of late night and early morning traffic

It's no secret that cab drivers can be crazy and erratic. But they're at their worst during the hours of 1am and 7am every morning. During this time, they're most likely to run a red light, turn left or right against the signal, or worst yet - cross the center divide on Park avenue and other split lane roads when they're supposed to be stopped.

I learned this the hard way a few mornings ago, when I decided to go out early for a quick ride. I started going down Park, but noticed down the road that cabs were cutting straight across the divide without hesitation. I decided not to risk it a single block more, and turned off onto Lexington to continue my journey.

Lession of the day: avoid two laned, divided roads in Manhattan (Park and upper west side Broadway), and in general expect cabs stopped at intersections to run them during the early morning / late late night hours.

Bridge review update: Queensboro Bridge

I mentioned in an earlier post (http://nycmoto.blogspot.com/2006/12/christmas-eve-bridges-ride-and-review.html) that the Queensboro upper roadway always seemed closed. Secretly, I thought that the Queensboro deservered at least another star if that section ever re-opened for a long enough period of time to be considered reliable. And so it happened - it seems the winter construction is over, and the bridge is now easily accessible from 57th street between 1st and 2nd (the best way to reach it is to drive north up 1st ave, then turn left onto 57th - that way, you'll avoid getting caught making an uncomfortable left hand turn with traffic to your back).



Queensboro Bridge: **** stars
At long last, the top level is reliably open, providing a great midtown view of the river, and a great west-bound view of Roosevelt Island. It's still a little tricky to navigate once you cross the river, as the top level of the bridge seems to devolve into a series winding, narrow concrete channels as soon as you hit Queens. But otherwise, it's a great, easy to find bridge that is motocycle friendly on all but the windiest days (but they're the most fun anyway).

Feigned insanity

I got a great idea today, inspired by the little gray toyota I saw out on I495 yesterday. Here's the concept:

Drivers already get nervous enough whenever a motorcyclist drives anywhere near them. The idea is to capitalize off this nervousness, and magnify it. By swerving around the lane more than normal, cars around you will interpret this as insane driving, and actively avoid you, so they don't hit you and get manslaughter charges.

Aside from the obvious downside of having to be extra careful in your manoeuvres not to lose traction or hit a road trap, I think this is just another trick to carry around.

Brain freeze

Yesterday wasn't so bad temperature wise, but sustained highway winds made driving longer than 15 minutes at a time painful... until...

I went to Kohl's and bought two velcro neck bandanas - the kind that go around your neck, snap in the back, and reach up and cover your mouth as well. I also bought a thin wool hat - the kind that hugs your head, not the kind that folds up with a lip at the bottom. All of this was to complement my existing head wrap, which wasn't up to the task of constant 75mph wind buffetting.

The solution worked perfectly. I wrapped one bandana right up to my mouth, so my breath could disperse, instead of fogging my sheild. The second bandana I wrapped around my neck, and bunche it up to reduce the wind chill on my neck, but more importantly to reduce the wind that crept up and circulated in my helmet. Finally, I put the hat on my head *on top of* my thin head wrap. Though it made the fit in my helmet a little snug, the added warmth was a tradeoff I was willing to make. All in all, I've now found yet another way to keep riding through the winter. And in case you forgot, I'm doing this all on a naked bike, so your results on any other type of bike should be even better.

Trail braking - a fact of life

Many country riders will debate the merits and risks of trail braking, but for city riders, it's a constant fact of life. For the layman, trail braking is the act of braking before the turn, and slowly releasing the brake through the turn. This differs from what most formal riding courses teach beginners; that the ideal is to brake, release completely, and then turn.

In theory, avoiding the front brakes into the turn is ideal, since excessive pressure can force a lockup, or make the front lose traction. However, a controlled release on the front brake can actually give you more control, since the weight of the bike remains on the front tire.

Most racing courses will teach that 90 degree turns require trail braking for as much as 25 percent of the turn. Of course, all city intersections are right angles, so this means that a controlled turn means releasing the front brake for a quarter of the turn. In most cases, this translates into braking all the way up to the side street turn, and then releasing the brake slowly until the front tire is a few meters from the white pedestrian line. Incidentally, this also frees up the most traction as you approach the white paint, which is a well-known grip killer.

Personal winter riding record!

This past week saw the coldest day of the year so far... 20F degrees with high winds. Highway riding likely brought this down to the low teens, maybe even 10F degrees.

But I was warm and toasty with my new winter gear. For the first time, I tried my new Widder heated gloves. Combined with my wind-stopper glove liners, and heated hand grip wraps, my hands have never been warmer. The greatest part about the gloves is that they heat the outside of my hands, effectively cancelling out the windchill effect, and leaving my hands feeling like they would on a warm summer day. I once considered my hands the weakest link in my ability to ride through the winters, but now I'm pleased to announce my feet have gained the title.

Combined with my heated Widder vest, my upper body is quite warm, and able to generate enough heat to circulate around to the rest of my body. Previously, I tried on a number of occassions to ride out of the city, on I95 up to CT or down to NJ, but could never get farther than about 10 miles before my pinky and ring fingers would be frozen stiff (they were so cold, I had to pull over to the road to shake the circulation back into them, and then ride with my wrists bent over completely to sheild my fingers from the wind).

My new dilemma, however, is my feet. I currently wear white summer race boots with perforations. Although I wear wool socks and a wind liner over them, enough air gets in to make my feet feel cold. I've found a temporary solution in pointing my toes closer to the body of the bike, near the exhaust, but it's only a temporary solution. I've been meaning to get a second pair of boots, so I think I'll grab a nice set of white race boots soon...

Riding hazards series: Sharing the road with cabs

I don't have to tell anyone who's ridden more than a day in NYC about how to drive around cab drivers. But for the uninitiated, here are a few tips and rules:

-Above all, look out for cabs with their center light lit on their roof - they're looking for pedestrians, and will cut over to the side of the road at any intersection. To play it safe, always ride outside a cab looking for passengers (ride closer to the middle lane if a cab is driving either to the right or left side of the street). If an available cab is driving down the middle lane, *get out of the way*!

-Cabs with all lights off on top are carrying passengers. Beware around intersections. These cabs will often rapidly decelerate to drop off near an intersection. If you see brake lights, expect a full stop is coming. Furthermore, be careful as they approach intersections, since they may be asked by their passengers to drop on the extreme opposite side of the road. If that's the case, they'll drive straight across, often swerving at the last minute.

-Look out for long lines of cabs, especially in waiting lines near hotels or train stations. Often, cabs toward the back of the line will give up on the wait, and quickly dart out of the line, back into traffic.

-Cabs stuck in stop and go traffic will quickly dart to the left or right as traffic starts to move, so avoid lane splitting anywhere near them. They're not unpredictable - in fact, they're very predictable... just assume they'll always dart randomly.

-Be as aware as cab drivers are... look out for groups of people clustered around corners and intersections. Even if they don't have their hands waved, cab drivers know they might raise when they see a cab with its light on. Look out for cabs swerving over, or cut out from behind another car into your lane

NYC Javits Center Motorcycle Convention

For all those thinking about attending, there's plenty of motorcycle parking on the far right side of the Javits center - easily 50 other riders were parked there when I showed up at about 3pm.

So I rode over to the Javit's center, and walked around all the exhibits to sit on the other motorcycles. On the far right, there were all the choppers, in the back the stunters and squid bikes, and down the middle the Italian and English bikes... every stereotype rider got his own section.

But I learned something about myself today. I hate sport bikes. Their leaned over seat position makes it incredibly painful to sustain a view of the road ahead. In fact, every single sportbike I tried gave me cramps in my neck while trying to look at a height that I'm used to on my Buell XB12Ss. In fact, the only bikes that came close to the same comfort (with acceptable styling) were the BMW K1200R, and the Ducati Sport, which says a lot about my preferences in bikes. The problem, though, is the size and poor handling of the BMW and the jumpiness, lower power, and high maitenance required of the Ducati. Until I move out of NYC, I don't expect to change my bike any time soon.

I didn't buy much today - in fact, though I was tempted by the LED light bars they sold, I only bought anti-fog lens fluid. The problem was that most of the vendors were only giving a maximum discount of 10% on their merchandise - which is downright skimpy compared to your average discount or deal you can find online. But it was fun checking out those lights, and I'm convinced now about buying wireless brake-light activated LED kits... which I'll review on the site shortly.

I got quite a few compliments about my Axio hard bag with reflective tape, and a number of people told me my white leather jacket made me visible from half-way across the Javits floor. All of these comments were music to my ears, and a confirmation that I'm visible on the streets.

How you know it's no good to ride

I was walking home from the office today, and I noticed it had just started to drizzle out. Last night and this morning were below freezing, so the surface of the ground was clearly frozen. My typical tell - water puddles at intersection corners - indicated it was a risky day to begin with. But what really put the icing on the cake (almost literally) was the slightly warmer atmosphere, light rain cover, *and* frozen ground.

In fact, just to test things out, I tried scuffing the soles of my shoes in the middle of the street, while crossing at the crosswalk. Normally there's enough resistance to make me feel uncomfortable about ruining my shoes, but today the ground was as slick as ice. There was no grip whatsoever. Meanwhile, the sidewalks were still coarse enough to grip - I suspect this is because of the more porous concrete used on sidewalks throughout Manhattan. But I don't think I'll be riding around, sidewalk hopping any time soon.

Of course, the weather turned for the "worse" and the drizzle turned to rain in the late afternoon. After about an hour of rain, around 7pm, I tried my test again. The rain had thawed the ground surface enough to make scuffing possible - despite the rain. Lesson learned:

If it's warm enough to rain, and
It's been raining for at least an hour, and
The temperature is on its way up, ...

...then it's safe to ride in NYC.

The universe is about to end...

Today, I saw one of the most terrifying sights. A Vespa... with a custom racing stripe down the middle of its body and seat. Now what on earth is that supposed to imply? I mean really. I've gotten a couple of emails from Vespa riders... you know who you are, so I'm not going to join the standard Vespa-knocking that goes on these days. But is it really going to do any good trying to regain your masculinity with a racing stripe, when your vehicle is already 100% chic? I don't think so.

While we're on the topic of scooters, the city is clearly overrun with them. I think that's great, but I fear for their safety. I see far too many scooters flying around in all-black attire, or riders wearing only dress slacks and a button-down shirt. In fact, I saw one of the most disturbing sights last Friday. I man was riding a woman he clearly picked up at a bar. She was riding in back, straddling him, with... only... fishnet stockings. Let's step back for one second, and imagine what she was thinking. Clearly, nothing coherent. Did she think her fishnets would protect her from the NYC pavement for 1 inch or 2? Or did she think it would look sexy to have charred fishnet lace burned into her flesh, only to be picked out by scalpel in the ER later? Either way, I cringed when I saw it. Not cool. Not chic. And definitely not hot.

Riding hazards series: Sunken manhole covers

You see them everywhere - manhole covers in the middle of the street, usually on the avenues. The problem comes on those avenues that have had multiple layers of paving, without the full prerequisite stripping of the original road layers. Examples of this are midtown Lexington and 7th avenue. For some reason, there are tons of covers that are at least 3 or 4 inches deep, which are as bad as the worst potholes you'll find anywhere.

The trick to avoiding these is to ride on the sides of the avenues - never right up the middle. This is a good idea anyway, since you'll avoid being fodder for riders cutting you off from both sides.

NYC's most dangerous intersections

I was browsing around the blog entitled New York Hack when I stumbled upon a list of the most dangerous intersections. Although the list is published for cab drivers, it's a great list to know for any motorcyclist to know.

Without further ado, here's the list, in order decreasing from most accident injuries to fewest:

1. E 33rd St and Park Ave
2. 34th St and 7th Ave
3. Essex and Delancy St
4. W 14 st and Ave of the Americas
5. 145th St and 7th Ave
6. W 42nd St and 8th Ave
7. E 42nd St and 3rd Ave
8. w34th and 8th Ave
9. E 14th St and 3rd Ave
10. E 14th St and 1st Ave

I took this morning to visit each one, just so you don't have to - though I honestly don't know that I'd recommend *that* to anyone as a tour of Manhattan. Here's another interpretation of the list above that's easier to remember to avoid / beware while riding:

-The entrance to the Park Avenue tunnel, heading north (drivers are always deciding to cut in at the last minute)
-Anywhere around Penn Station (cabs darting everywhere)
-A block west of Times Square (there's always tons of Jersey traffic here, and lots of illegal U-turners)
-Wherever you see tons of white stripe paint checkered across the intersection (e.g. 42nd & 3rd)
-Whenever you find yourself on a two-way street with no physical divider (e.g. all of 14th street, 7th Avenue above the Central Park, and Delancey Street right off the Williamsburg bridge)